Once Burned
by arandomshipper
Summary: Even though Shego is the most dangerous woman, make that the most dangerous PERSON, alive, Kim always walks away from their fights without a scratch on her. What if, one time, she didn't? You'd have a scenario like this one. Rated M for everything. Well, a minimum of curse words, but everything else.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.

 **Once Burned**

"Help!" She burst into the emergency room, carrying an unmoving form in her arms that trailed red hair down to the floor. "Please, help! You have to save her!"

"Ma'am, you can't be in h-****, what is that?! What happened to her?!" The doctors wasted no time waiting for an answer, they went right to work on the young woman whose life was clearly hanging in the balance. Most of her jaw and left cheekbone were gone all the way up to her eye socket, as well as much of her nose and a small part of her neck. The only reason she hadn't bled out within seconds of recieving such a horrendous injury was that it had been cauterized instantly, closing off the gaping wound.

"It was an accident," She whispered, slumping against the wall and sliding down until she was sitting. She wrapped her arms around her knees and began rocking back and forth. "It was an accident, it was an accident, it was an accident, it was an accident. Not an accident. I meant to hit her. I meant to try to hit her. But she'll dodge. She always dodges. Always. She's Kimmie. She's perfect, she'll never mess up. But she's a little slower today, I can tell. Maybe she's tired? I don't know. It's fine, I'll just fight her like usual. It's just a normal claw swipe, she can-Kimmie, no, you have to move, what are you doing, KIMMIE, NO! NO! NO! What have I done, what have I done, Kimmie don't die, please!" She put her hands up to the sides of her head and dug her claws into her skull, sobbing, still rocking back and forth.

The doctors paid her no more mind, as it was taking all their expertise to keep the patient alive. They had no attention to spare for the girl crying in the corner. The orderlies should have been escorting her out, but they recognized her, and they wanted no part of any attempt to force her to do anything she didn't want to. They contacted Global Justice instead.

Minutes later, the hospital was swarmed with agents. The agent in charge was taken aback to find his quarry in an unresisting mess on the floor. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Shego, you are under arrest for crimes against humanity, including but not limited to: international terrorism, conspiracy to conquer the world, destruction of public property, grand theft, fraud, kidnapping, assult, and the attempted murder-" The machines gave a loud, uninterrupted beep. He closed his eyes sadly and paused for a moment. "Make that the murder of one Kimberly Ann-"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" She gave a primal scream and leaped off the floor, rushing to the surgeon's table. More than a dozen agents attempted to tackle her and hold her down, but she knocked most of them away contemptuously and struggled on with five or so hanging off of her. She reached a hand out, and was brought to a sudden halt as every agent in the room hit her with their wrist stunners at once. She took one more stubborn step forward, then collapsed in a heap, unconscious.

A/N:...yeah. This chapter hurt to write. And, I'm sorry to say...it's gonna get worse from here. This story is going to totally destroy me, I think. But I have good news! Fifteen minutes could save-no, wait, that's not the good news. What's the good news? Is there any? OH, YEAH! I REMEMBER! Spoiler alert! Kim's not dead. Or at least, she won't be next chapter. That is the same thing, isn't it? Well, sometimes it's not, but this time it is.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: A review reminded me that I forgot to establish a timeline for this story. It mostly doesn't matter, except for one important point. This is pre-STD. I don't do breakups, I don't do cheating, and I most certainly don't do threesomes. This story is set before Kim and Ron hook up. When EXACTLY isn't important, though I prefer to think of it as a Season One kind of thing.

The remainder of the story will be Kim POV. Chapter One couldn't begin that way, for obvious reasons.

Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.

 **Once Burned**

 _beep. beep. beep. beep._

It was a sound I was very familiar with, being the daughter of a doctor, but this was the first time in my life I awakened to that particular noise. Hazy would be a great way to describe my feelings, as my eyes slowly opened. _A...hospital_? My thoughts were like jello, wiggley and insubstantial, and very, very slow. _How...why..._

I tried to move, and found that my movements were even slower than my thoughts. A sluggish attempt to lift my head ended in excruciating pain from my upper neck and jaw area. I cried out involuntarily, and was horrified at the disgusting sound. _That's not my voice!_

Fear, an emotion I have very little experience with, shot through me as quickly and inexorably as the pain, overwhelming everything else in an instant. My whole world was pain and fear. I continued to try to scream, which only made the pain worse, and the sounds I heard coming from me threw me into a further state of panic. I was thrashing around, or trying to, but my limbs were mostly unresponsive. I had never felt so weak and helpless in my life.

"Shhh, shhh, shhh, try to calm down, honey." I felt hands holding me down, warm, comforting hands that I knew belong to the warm, comforting voice. I responded as much through instinct as through any will of my own, trusting that voice, the same one I heard every day in the womb. "You can't be awake just yet. We still have a lot of work to do."

A needle went into my arm, and my already sluggish thoughts were thrust even further from lucidity, into a state where dream and reality were impossible to distinguish. The important thing, though, was that the pain disappeared. Without the pain clouding my mind, I was quickly able to adapt to the strange state my mind was in and begin to make sense of my surroundings, mostly asleep though I was. My eyes were closed, but my mind's eye could see what was happening around me. Or maybe I was just dreaming. At the time, I wasn't sure, and even now, years later, I don't know for certain. What I 'saw', was Mom and another doctor working on my ruined face. There was some kind of machine helping me breathe. One 'look' at my neck told me it was necessary. Seeing the damage reminded me of what happened, and how I ended up here. A wave of emotion hit me, damped by the current state of my mind, namely, whatever drugs they had me on. I pretty much ran the gamut, which made me glad I couldn't experience it all in full. Anger, fear, sadness, regret, resignation, all had their shot at me in small doses. But I am nothing if not resilient. In the end, none of those emotions can hold me for long. Determination is and always has been king in my life, and in the end, that was the only one left. I would survive this.

 _"She shouldn't have been able to become conscious that quickly. That was dangerous."_

 _"My girl is a fighter. I should've known she'd shake off a life-threatening injury like that more than twice as fast as an average human."_

 _"'Shake off', you say. She's far from out of danger yet, and her being awake only further complicates a nearly insurmountable task."_

 _Mom's face hardened at that comment. It was plain to see where I got my determination from. "Insurmountable, my ***. If you're going to talk like that, I don't need you here. I'll do this myself if I have to."_

 _The other doctor sighed. "Ann, you're a brain surgeon. This isn't even close to your specialty._ You're _the one who shouldn't even be here, especially given that you're operating on a family member."_

 _Neither doctor paused in their work in the slightest as they argued. It was obvious even to my untrained eye that they were both exceptionally skilled. It was also obvious that Mom was getting ticked off. I had never seen her like this. "I don't care. Specialty or not, I'm the best. When it comes to my family, I'll stomp all over any hospital law, federal law, or law of the *** **** UNIVERSE if I have to. My daughter will NOT die while I'm alive."_

 _My dream self smiled. "You go, Mom." I 'whispered'. My 'sight' dimmed, and I reentered the world of nothingness._


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.

 **Once Burned**

"Go ahead, Kim. Give it a shot."

"Testing, testing. Wow, this thing really works!" I fingered the device attached to the base of my throat. "How in the world did you come up with this?"

"Oh, it was nothing." Wade said with an embarrassed shrug. "I just ran every recording we have of your voice since you hit puberty through a behavioral identification algorithm I've been working on to predict-"

"Okay, I'm gonna cut you off there, Wade. Back to earth people speak, please."

"Basically, this thing knows what you're going to say, and in what tone, and reproduces it mechanically."

"So it reads my mind? That's kind of creepy."

"No, no, not at all. That would be way more difficult, chancy, and intrusive. And yes, that would be super creepy. I'll leave that stuff to the _mad_ scientists. This only reads the outward signs of your mood. Pulse, body language, things like that."

"That still seems pretty difficult to me. Thanks so much. You totally rock, Wade."

He glanced away uncomfortably. "You're welcome, Kim. Now, if you would just let me-"

"No." I said coldly.

"But Kim-"

"I'm not doing it. End of story."

I had spent a month in a medically induced coma, after waking up the first time. When I first woke for the second and last (hopefully) time, after everything had a chance to really sink in, I was horrified at my new appearance. I look like something out of a low-budget horror movie. In all honesty, it kind of broke me. I was severely depressed. The practical problems I have to live with, such as not being able to speak and needing to be fed intravenously, were devastating, but paled in comparision, in my own mind, to the fact that I used to be pretty, and now I was very much the opposite. No one would ever look at me with anything but horror, disgust, and/or pity again. No one would ever want to kiss me, and they couldn't even if they wanted to. I was so depressed I wished they hadn't woken me at all, that Shego had just killed me.

Ultimately, though, I can look back on it now as a good thing. It forced me to evaluate myself. The very depression eating away at my heart made me realize how important my looks had been to me. In fact, it made me realize that I had always put too much stock in appearances, even though I knew better. When I understood this about myself, I determined to change. Just when I embraced my new look, Wade excitedly told me that he had developed a hologram to give me my old face back. Of course, he hadn't yet given me the vocal device, but the look in my eye and the shaking of my head told him I was having none of it.

I was probably being too harsh with him though. "Look, Wade. I really appreciate the effort you've gone through for me, and I'm obviously stoked about being able to talk again. I'm sorry you had to go through the trouble of making a hologram device I won't be using, but I'm not interested."

"Okay, Kim. If that's what you want." He said in a subdued voice. "I'll just keep it somewhere handy, just in case you ever change your mind."

"Not bloody likely." I said, startling myself. "Uhhh...that wasn't exactly what I wanted to say."

"Heh, sorry about that. Working with a prototype pretty much guarantees you find bugs of some kind along the way. I'll keep working on it."

"I'll keep working on my ASL for emergencies."

"Yeah, that's definitely a good idea. You don't want to get too dependent on technology."

"Says the cyborg."

"Hey, that's not fair. I'm here in the flesh this time. Besides, you're more cyborg than I am now."

I laughed."Maybe I should work on my Darth Vader breathing. Wade! I am your father!"

Wade tried to fake a laugh, but...I can't really describe what my laugh sounds like now, but let's just say it doesn't sound like a happy sound anymore. It doesn't exactly inspire people to laugh along with me. They mostly either stare at me with a terrified expression like the gaping hole in my face is going to swallow them whole, or avoid eye contact with a forced, nervous chuckle, embarrassed by their own instinctive reaction, like Wade was doing right now.

"Yeah. Good one, Kim. Um, listen, visting hours are almost over so-"

"Hold on, Wade. I'm very grateful for everything you've done so far, but I'm going to ask you one more huge favor."

"Sure. Anything for you, Kim."

"I'm sick to death of this hospital. I can feel my body degrading, just lying here in bed every day. Just living through that injury and recovering to the point where my life is no longer in danger sapped way too much of my body's resources, and now I've spent too many months bedridden. They can't keep me here much longer. When I get out, I want to get back in the game as quickly as possible. What I need from you is to build me a training room."

"A training room? You mean, like a gym?"

"I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Danger Room."

He sucked in his breath. "You want me to help you kill yourself?!"

"Don't be dramatic, Wade. You can make the lowest setting as safe as you like, just as long as the highest setting is as extreme as anything I might come across out there."

"And then trust you to use it responsibly, and not immediately put it on the highest setting on the first day. Yeah, not gonna happen, Kim."

"Wade." I grabbed his hand and looked him in the eye with all that was left of the puppy dog pout, which now has less pleading and more steely determination than it used to. "Please, Wade. I need this. I need this way more than I needed my voice back. I have to be Kim Possible again as quickly as I can, or I'll...I'll...I don't know. But I have to."

He cringed away from me. "...Okay. I'll trust you. Just...be careful. You know it would kill me if anything happened to you, right?"

"Thanks, Wade." I said in relief. "Oh, one more thing though."

"Yeah?" He asked warily.

"No observation of my training."

He gave me a hard look. "Well, I guess if I already agreed to trust you I can agree to that too, but why?"

Now it was my turn to avoid eye contact, embarrassed. "I...don't want anyone to see how weak I am now."

To his credit, he understood immediately. We have worked together for years, after all. "No problem, Kim. No eyes on the training room."

"Thanks, Wade. You are the bee's knees. What in tarnation did I say? Dagnabit!"

"Yeah, I'm gonna work on that, too."


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.

 **Once Burned**

It wasn't easy.

Oh, no. Not the rehab. That was easy. The constant pain in my unbalanced face as I pushed myself to my physical limits and beyond, the mental anguish when my muscles gave out after a measly twenty pushups, the reshaping and hardening of my dilapidated body, that was all easy.

Getting Mom to let me out of the hospital, that was hard.

I had never fought with my Mom. Not really. Not normal for a sixteen year old girl, I know, but Mom was pretty chill most of the time about most things, and anything she wasn't okay with, I was smart enough to know she was right about.

But not this. She was wrong about this. So, so wrong.

She wanted me to quit. Me! She actually thought I could go back to being a normal teen after living the life I've lived. Or, no, maybe she didn't think that, but she fooled herself into believing it anyway, because she was scared. And the thing is, before getting hurt like that, I might have done it. I had always had one foot in the 'average girl' life and one in the 'superhero crimefighter' life. Maybe I would've eventually given up my extra extracirricular afterschool activities and become a normal person if I had never been injured. But the near-death experience changed me, and the part of my life that it made me want to eliminate was not the 'super' part.

Mom was scared, and she thought I would be, too. But I wasn't. I was angry. We had our first shouting match. Well, she shouted. I did my best with the still imperfect voice modulater Wade had given me, which didn't quite convey everything as vehemently as I intended, but I think my death glare got the message across anyway.

I didn't see the fear at first. It was all stoic determination, just like mine. She may be the person in the world most similar to myself, and that concerned me, because she was putting her foot down just as hard as I was. She honestly thought that forcing me into a normal life now was for the best. I thought for a moment that I might seriously have to wait two more years to turn eighteen and move out before I could be myself again, but it was not to be.

She cried. I had never seen her cry before, not even when it looked like I would die on the operating table. Maybe it was a ploy to make me feel guilty, but if so, it backfired. She's the one who let me start fighting super criminals at the age of thirteen. If she was scared I'd get myself killed, she should've thought of that back then. Now it was too late. I didn't feel any guilt at all at her tears. I felt triumph. Her tears were a sign of weakness, uncertainty in her path that I did not share. My will was stronger. I knew at that moment that I had won the argument already, even if she didn't. It might take a while, but I would get my way. And I was right.

Months later, I was ready to use the training module Wade had made for me.

The training room he'd made for me was everything I could've wanted and more. It was originally a warehouse just outside of Middleton, a half hour drive from my house, nothing else of note around for a couple of miles. A portion of the building was dedicated to bodybuilding, with freeweights and machines just like a gym. I spent a lot of time there before even attempting to use the other section.

I wasn't back to full strength yet, not nearly, but the face plate stabilzer he'd given me recently had eliminated the constant pain and disorientation while moving quickly, so I was confident I could handle an average difficulty mission. Wade had explained the concept to me, so I had a general idea of what was about to happen. I enter the desired difficulty level into the interface and step into the room, and the computer generates a hard light hologram enemy for me to fight. I decided to try the lowest setting just for kicks.

As the light shone down from the generator to give my opponent form, I took a fighting stance. When it dimmed enough to see, I had to look down. Way down. It was a six inch tall Hellow Kitty doll.

I relaxed my stance with a sigh. "Why, Wade..." I said in exasperation. The doll toddled up to me, saying 'destroy. destroy.' and swinging its arms ineffectually. I gave it an irritated shove with my toe, knocking it down. It looked up at me...and suddenly I was on the ground groaning in pain.

"Mission failure." It may have been my imagination, but the computer sounded infuriatingly smug.

"Laser eyes? Really?" I sat up gingerly, holding my aching head. Honestly, though, I was happy. Not only was Wade taking me seriously with this device, he had even done it with a not-so-gentle reminder to be vigilent, never cocky, and never take things at face value. A reminder that I evidently needed.

"Okay. Let's try this again."


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.

 **Once Burned**

School is nothing but a big waste of time.

I remember when I didn't feel that way. I actually liked school for most of my life, though I have trouble remembering exactly why. I suppose it was in part because of my competitive nature, just enjoying being the best at everything, including schoolwork and homework and tests. That and cheerleading gave me something to excel at that still made me feel like a basic, average girl, which I thought was important for...some reason. I don't even know.

My opinion on that subject did a complete 180 after my injury. School still more or less makes sense for someone who doesn't know what career path they want, but I knew exactly what I wanted out of life now, and Advanced Calculus and AP English Lit weren't going to help me take down criminals any faster. I would have dropped out then and there, but surprise, surprise, Mom wouldn't let me. She made it a condition of my resuming the crimefighting thing that I not only exhibit a total recovery, but that I keep up on my schooling and graduate. I wasn't ready to move out yet, so I had no choice but to play along, frustrating as it was.

She also convinced me to use Wade's hologram after all. The face plate stabilizer was for function, not for appearance. It helped with breathing, stabilized my face (hello, right there in the name) to prevent further damage and nausea, and offered some protection, but it did little to change the fact that I looked like a nightmare from the chest up. I was perfectly fine with that. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I was reveling in my horrific appearance, and my family and friends were pretty much used to it by then, but it was sure to be very disruptive at school, I couldn't deny that, and I had no real desire to be an unnecessary disturbance to kids just trying to get through their collective days.

As it turned out, wearing a hologram of my old face didn't prevent me from being the center of attention my first day back. I guess being absent for months is bound to get the rumor wheel rolling, even if you're NOT a crimefighting super teen. Stares and whispers like I hadn't seen since Jr. High when Bonnie pasted a Kick Me sign to my back. And speaking of Bonnie...

"So, Kim. Gone for months and then you just waltz back in here like nothing happened. I suppose you expect to just have the head cheerleader position handed right back to you on a silver platter, after I've done all of YOUR work the last couple of months?"

Locker ambush. Bonnie is nothing if not cliché. In a way, it was admirable. Everyone else was scared to talk to me. Later, Ron told me some of the rumors going around, so it's really no wonder. They were saying I had died, that I'd accidentally killed someone, that I'd killed someone on purpose, that I was abducted and experimented on, and those were some of the nicer ones. Whatever they may have believed, though, people were scared to talk to me for another reason as well. I had changed. I wasn't friendly and outgoing anymore. I didn't have time for other people's bull****. The day to day teenager interactions were nothing but a distraction and a hindrance to my purpose, one I wasn't going to tolerate, and it was apparent even with the hologram projector, in my body language and in my eyes. People were scared to talk to me because they had good instincts. Because I wanted them to be.

Not Bonnie, though. Good old Bonbon wasn't scared. She wasn't scared of the rumors. She probably started half of them herself. And she wasn't scared of me, because she was one of the few people that knew me inside out that was neither family nor friend, and she knew I wasn't dangerous.

Wasn't.

That was the old me.

"Nope." I said shortly. "I'm done cheerleading. It's all yours."

That floored her. Not the reaction she was expecting or hoping for, I'm sure. For a moment I saw something flash in her eyes that may have been concern, before her Bonnie face snapped back into place. _Aww, isn't that sweet_ , I thought sarcastically.

"Kim Possible is quitting?! Finally! You admit that I'm better than you in every way, that you have no hope of competing! You didn't have to quit entirely, though. I would've let you stay on the squad. Maybe. If you impressed me at the re-audition."

I sighed. I just wanted the conversation to be over, but nothing can ever be that simple with Bonnie, can it. "I'm quitting because I want to. It's boring, it's stupid, and I don't have time for it anymore."

That was the wrong thing to say to end the conversation. No way was she going to let me walk away after insulting her favorite activity. "Oh, yeah? I heard you got hurt out there doing...whatever stupid stuff you do, but you look fine to me! The truth is that you're just intimidated be me! Admit it!"

I slowly turned to face her. I could've just walked away, I had everything I needed out of my locker, but I wasn't feeling like walking away this time. "The truth?" I stepped closer to her. She took a step back. I think she was finally beginning to see that I wasn't quite the same Kim she knew. "The truth?" I stepped even closer and slammed her against the locker. She glared defiantly back at me, but her tongue was conspicuously still, evidence that she was smarter than I gave her credit for. "The truth," I whispered, "Is that I no longer meet the beauty requirement to be a member of this cheer squad. See?"

She screamed and dropped to a crouch, covering her face and trembling. An appropriate response to the point blank view I'd given her of my ruined face when I turned off the hologram, without even the mercy of the face plate, which I had elected not to wear during times of inactivity, to soften the sight.

"Believe it or not, I've got bigger problems than you, little Bonbon. You're like a pimple on my toe. You're annoying, but I'll ignore you if you don't call attention to yourself. Leave me alone, or I may decided you need to be popped."

Our exchange did not go entirely unnoticed. Word got around, and people started giving me an even wider berth than before, which suited me just fine. The more I could avoid stupid, meaningless conversations, the better.

Of course, there was one person who would never stop talking to me no matter what I did. That was okay, though, for two reasons. First, he did most of the talking anyway, and didn't expect me to chime in much. Second, when you're around someone since Kindergarten, you kind of build up an immunity. He's not nearly as annoying to me as everyone else is. Even though I'm pretty sure he's ten times MORE annoying to everyone else.

"So. I heard you and Bonnie got into it a little. What's up with that?" He asked, digging into whatever crap the lunch lady gave him.

"Nothing, really. I just didn't feel like putting up with her crap anymore." I said. I sat with him at our usual table, even though I wouldn't be eating. Fortunately for me, Dad had just finished development of a serum that injects nutrients directly into the bloodstream, bypassing the digestive system completely, a few months before my injury. It was originally intended for temporary use by astronauts to avoid the messiness of trying to eat in zero G, but it turned out to be even more efficient than eating a perfectly balanced diet. Dad got authorization for me to be one of the beta testers, and that was that. I do have to do enteral feeding about once a month still to prevent my digestive system from shutting down completely and all the damage that would cause, but in a way this is actually better than when I had a mouth. It takes no time at all to eat, just a quick needle in the arm and I'm done, and no worry about nutrition and eating healthy.

"Well, good for you. Should've done that years ago, in my opinion. Now, if you could just get Brick off my back, too..."

I chuckled. Ron winced at the sound. I don't know if it's even possible to get used to it, but he certainly hadn't yet. To be honest, I often laughed on purpose even when I didn't think it was funny just to see that reaction, or the even more hilarious one from people that hadn't heard me yet. "I'll think about it, Ron."

"That's all I ask, KP, that's all I ask. Okay, I lied. I'm actually asking you to do it, not just think about it. Please, please, please?"

"Ron!" I said, laughing more geniunely now. "You're the sidekick of a superhero! You should be able to handle a schoolyard bully yourself."

"Yeah, keyword, SIDEKICK. Other keyword, SHOULD. You know I got your back, KP, but I prefer to run from or talk around my problems. I can't run from him all the time, and trying to talk to him is like talking to a...well, a brick. C'mon, you're in an extra badassery mood lately, I can tell! Let's use it to put Brick in his place!"

"I'll think about it." I said more firmly. I wasn't lying when I said that Ron should be more than capable of handling Brick, and he was, he was just lazy. I had more important things to do than coddle my lazy sidekick/best friend. In fact, the best friend thing was kind of a lifelong position, but if he wanted to keep the sidekick thing going, he was going to have to step his game up to keep up with me. The old me at the height of my skill was just a rung on the ladder I intended to climb. A low rung on a tall ladder.


End file.
